Kiri sat carefully on the rocky ground by Mother’s body, folding her skirt under her knees. Her legs and hands had been shaking so hard that she nearly fell on the climb down from the pillar. But now that had subsided, leaving behind...nothing. She was moving through a dream, or a play. Not really there. Just watching. Kiri reached both hands behind her back and untied her apron with deft fingers. She shook the apron out and laid it smoothly over Mother, tugging and tucking the corners. Kiri stared for a moment at the makeshift shroud, then tucked in the strings. Mother liked things to be tidy.

Once that job was done, Kiri wandered around the clearing for a little while, gathering up the remains of their picnic that the bandits had scattered and stacking everything back in the baskets. As she moved about, Kiri did not let herself get too close to the bodies of the bandits. She did not want to see if their faces were still frozen in that final look of terror. But she did notice that one of the bandits was not laying on the ground. The one she had struck with the knife was not there. He must have run away to save himself from her.

Kiri looked down at her hand, which looked normal enough now. It had been so hot... panic began to tighten her throat and she pushed the thought down.

Mother’s body needed to be brought home. Too heavy for Kiri to carry herself, so she needed help. Someone from the village would help, so time to go there. Kiri picked up the two baskets. They were not very heavy now that all the food had been eaten.

At first her stride was slow. With eyes straight ahead Kiri clutched the two baskets in front she set one foot in front of the other. But when she stepped clear of the stones, and saw the valley stretched out before her, Kiri broke into a run. The baskets fell from her hands, forgotten, and spilled their contents on the ground. Find someone, she thought. Find anyone.

~

The trees flew past. The ground tripped and threw her, but Kiri gained her feet again as though she had never fallen, still running, running. Shrubs caught at her skirt and tore the fabric when Kiri did not stop even for the moment it would take to pull it free.

The whoosh-thud of an axe cleaving wood reached her ears. Kiri made for the sound, running so fast thin branches slapped her face and scratched her arms. The ground sloped downward, aiding her headlong rush, until all at once it leveled and she emerged into a cleared yard. Her legs had gotten away from her; it was hard to stop running. A man--she knew him, it was Eric, one of the farmers who lived outside of the village--was chopping wood in the middle of the yard, but he didn’t notice her until she slammed into a barrel and knocked it over. Pickles spilled onto the ground, and the sharp scent of the brine filled the air and burned in Kiri’s nose. One pickle rolled all the way to Eric’s booted feet.

Eric set down his axe and rounded on her, gesturing furiously. “Look at that! What do you think you’re doing!” And then his expression changed as he got a good look at her. “You’re hurt,” he said, in a completely different voice. “What happened, Kiri?”

Kiri was having a hard time catching her breath. She held up a hand for a moment to gather herself, and with a shock realized it was covered in blood. That was why Eric thought she was hurt. Maybe her clothes were bloody, too. She shook her head. “Blood,” she gasped. “Not mine. Mother...bandits.”

Eric looked at her in silence for a few moments, waiting for her to explain. Kiri caught her breath, but she still couldn’t say anything more.

“Come on,” he said firmly, finally. “Let’s go inside.”

He came toward Kiri, but when she instinctively flinched he took a deliberate step back to leave a space between them while he led her up into the house

“BOYS!” Eric yelled as soon as they were inside. “MARTA! TROUBLE!”

The back door led into a narrow hallway, and it was soon packed with Eric’s family. Eric was a big man, all thick and muscled and at least six feet tall, and every one of his five sons was just as big as him. Each of them had dark features, black beards, and a crop of curly back hair. Kiri shrank to the wall; her back pressed flat to the surface.

Marta pushed through the men and came to Kiri’s side. She rounded on her family and put a gentle arm around Kiri’s shoulders. “You’re scaring her!” she scolded them. “Now. What’s happened dearie?”

Kiri looked at Marta. She had a naturally motherly face, round with laugh lines around the eyes and a soft, sympathetic turn to her mouth. Kiri swallowed hard. “We were at the Standing Stones for a picnic,” she said. “I don’t know where they came from.” The rest of the story came out in a jumbled mess. She left out the part about the knife, and her own glowing, sparking hand, saying only that she ran away. She didn’t want them to know that the bodies up there were her fault. No one seemed to notice her stumble as she made the omission. They looked at each other in alarm.

“They might still be there then?” Hamme, Eric’s oldest son, asked.

Kiri looked at the floor and shrugged. Of course the bandits were still there, they were dead. But she hadn’t told them about that. What would they think when they saw?

The men started talking amongst themselves. Kiri was glad to be ignored, and tried to ignore them in return. She didn’t want to hear them talk about fighting bandits...or getting her mother’s body.

Marta squeezed her shoulders. “Come on, dearie,” she said. “Let’s get you cleaned up.”

~

He ran all the way to the river, cursing himself for a fool. The after-image of the lightning was burned into the young bandit’s mind. He felt it constantly at his back, forcing him on. Fear pushed him to go as fast as he could despite choosing to cut through the backcountry and avoid the roads. Among the bandit crew he was the most sure-footed. He moved easily on the leaf litter and ducked the low-hanging branches in the backcountry through the foothills. Nearer the river the land was more level and the young bandit lengthened his stride and sped his pace, jogging toward the sound of water. The lightning still loomed in his thoughts, but another real fear had come to him. If the girl had gone home and told what had happened, then men from the village, or even guardsmen from the manor might be looking for him.

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If she hadn’t gone back…that girl. He glanced down at his arm again, at the spot where she had hit him. It was glowing, as he had known it would be, as it had since the Stones. He could still feel it burning. What had that girl done to him? It could’ve been worse. He might have been struck by that lightning, streaking from the girl’s fingers, like everyone else. Everyone else.

The river opened up suddenly before him, a noisy torrent of water hugged closely by woods on both sides. Some trees, undercut by the flow, leaned crazily over the water, more and more for years, waiting until just enough of their roots were carved out from the earth, or just enough wind pulled at their branches, then they would fall and the river which had brought them down would carry them away, maybe all the way to the sea. It was one of these leaning trees to which they had tied their boat this morning, a still sturdy-enough willow that formed a decent hiding place for the boat with its dangling branches. But he didn’t see it. Surely it had not chosen this day, of all days, to fall. The coincidence seemed too much bad luck. Soon he realized that he had merely struck the water a little upstream of where he had meant to, and the hiding-tree was doing its job. Through its leaves he could see the prow of the boat gently rocking in the current.

He’d never taken the boat on his own before. The knots, a type he was not familiar with, proved difficult to untie. Finally, in frustration, he drew his knife and cut through the rope. The boat immediately started to move away with the swift current of the river, and he had to jump to catch it and climb in. As it was, he sloshed water into the boat and ended up with soaked feet as he paddled across to the opposite shore.

He wasn’t very experienced at boat-handling and the current pushed him far downriver of where he meant to land. The water had carried him past the sloping shore he’d been aiming for to a harsh cut bank of mud and roots. There wasn’t even a chance to grab a tree because the trunks started several feet above his reach. In desperation he stood and stretched, grabbing at the roots and dirts. Under his feet the boat rocked alarmingly, but he was unable to get a good hold. The boat bumped along the mud wall, finally snagging into tree roots that stuck out from the bank down into the river bed below.

Now that the boat wasn’t constantly carrying him on, he was able to scramble up the mud and onto the top of the tree. Luckily, his weight did not prove enough to overcome the strength of the roots and finally bring it down. Crawling off, he lay down in the dirt and leaves and looked down at the boat. The rope, which he had forgotten in his struggle, was lying coiled in the bottom and he wasn’t about to climb back down for it. Either the boat would stay tangled up in the roots or it wouldn’t. At this point he almost didn’t care. The sun was westering and if he didn’t hurry it would sink behind the mountains before he could get to shelter. The woods at night were not particularly dangerous, but he had no desire to be caught out alone. There would be no chance of him sleeping for fear a predator, or worse, an angry villager bent on revenge, might come upon him in the darkness.

The sun was gone and the first stars glinting in the darkening sky when at last he came to a jumble of boulders at the base of a high cliff. The precipice marked the end of an outcropping of the Coldown mountains, a high arm that cut into the valley, wearing about its tumbled shoulders great rocks and craggy trees. It was useless country for farmers, but excellent for outlaws: the perfect place for a hideout. He moved over the boulders with practiced ease despite the poor light. This was a route he knew. One of the boulders, a particularly large one, had an edge that jutted out, forming underneath it a small sheltered area. He slipped underneath and disappeared from sight.

He hung for a moment by his fingers, as he always did, with his feet hanging down in the hole that was hidden under the boulder’s overhang. For a moment his imagination was seized by the thought that the space beneath his feet went on forever. Rather than let his mind take him on further journeys, he let go.

The drop was far enough that he fell forward onto his hands and knees to take some of the momentum as his feet hit the ground. The fading sunlight reached only halfway down the hole, so the bottom was in total darkness. Not bothering to get up, he felt around in the darkness, muttering to himself. After a few moments he found what he was looking for: a small box containing torches, flint and steel. Sitting back against the hard rock, he fumbled with it until finally a spark caught and the torch flared up. He considered putting the flint and steel in his pocket, since he didn’t have his own and no one else would be needing it, after all. But it seemed wrong. It belonged here, to be used by any member of the crew who came into the hideout. So he tossed it back in and slammed the box closed and he rose to his feet.

He glanced up before going on into the cave. The last hints of day were fading from above.

The cave at first was narrow, with hard dusty walls and a rough, downsloping, rocky floor, but after a few dozen yards it opened up into a large chamber. The torchlight illuminated only the nearest stalactites, reaching wetly down towards their stalagmite mates. Very near the entrance one pair had joined, forming a narrow column. Nearby another pair were oh-so-close. As he did every time he entered the cave he put his hand between the two and held it there until a single drop of water fell in his palm. The others made fun of him for this, but it seemed important to him to do it. Everything in the cave seemed to be wet and dripping, or if it wasn’t truly wet it looked like water. Even the curtains of stone that hung in the middle of the chamber seemed like waterfalls that had frozen before they struck the floor. Somehow water was responsible for the magic of this place. He wanted to figure out how it worked.

It seemed like magic. Like that Eldan ruin. He hadn’t wanted to go in the first place. It seemed like a waste of time, chasing after magic. But Harish said that wasn’t his idea or his problem. Just do the job, he said, we do what the client wants. Well, it was the last problem that old fool ever had. Magic. The young bandit touched the bright spot on his arm where the knife had struck him, then immediately jerked his fingers back. Surprisingly, they had been burned by the contact. He wouldn’t have thought the spot was that hot, since his arm didn’t hurt. It didn’t bear thinking about what kind of harm that heat might be doing to him. The worst injuries sometimes don’t hurt until later.

He walked gingerly across the cave, not wanting to damage the delicate formations. The cookfire was in the back of the chamber, as far from the entrance as possible, so that no one could drop in on their heads while the crew ate their evening meal. That part of the cave held another mystery, almost as interesting as the water-that-was-rock. All along the rippling wall behind the remnants of yesterday’s fire, someone had painted the outlines of a herd of horses. Harish, who had found the caves years ago, said it had always been there. The horses were being chased by a great beast, larger than a tiger, but somewhat like one. The artist had taken some liberties if it was meant to be a tiger, because although it certainly was catlike and striped it sported massive teeth reaching well past its lower jaw.

He cleared the ash and made a fresh fire quickly, lighting the kindling with his torch, which he then extinguished. It had been drummed into him to never waste a torch. Being the youngest of their small band, he’d often got stuck with the housekeeping duties, so it was easy enough to fall into the routine of assembling a simple stew from the provisions piled nearby. There was no fresh meat, but that was a common enough thing. It would be a good stew. While it was simmering he leaned back against a handy stalagmite and stared at the horses. By the flickering light of the fire they almost looked as though they were running.

The cave was dark again. The fire had died down to glowing coals. The young bandit, exhausted by his flight, had fallen asleep waiting for the stew to finish cooking.

THUMP.

His body responded before his mind fully woke. The young man jumped to his feet and wavered unsteadily. Another thump sounded and he whirled around, hand reaching automatically for the empty sheath at his belt.